My Journal - September 8, 1993

September 8, 1993

I went to a real Peace Corps site for a visit this past weekend. I visited Pia McDonald in Nan Song. What a great trip. When I first found out I was going “alone” I panicked. The stress I put myself through, arghhh! It wasn’t as bad as I feared. Greg, Matt, Jay, Patsy, Bridgid, and Julie were all on the same train. The entire trip was so cool. The train ride is all night, a sleeper train.

We, all trainees, went to Bangkok Saturday morning. Our train left at 8:30pm. We went to the Peace Corps Office and got rained on. Everyone should go there once. Then we went to the train station by boat. About six of us went looking for a Mexican Restaurant we had heard about. Marvin told us how to find it and I am glad we did. Its called “El Gordo’s” and had great Mexican Food, considering we are in Thailand. Plus, they had Corona Beer for 95 baht or $4 a bottle. Sounds cheap, but if you can get a coke for 5 baht and dinner for 20 baht, its not such a great deal. But, I had three and loved every drop. The restaurant is owned by an American that has been out of Country for 25 years. He was an OK guy and he has been serving Peace Corpers for the last six years. We had a lot of fun, John had his tapes, of course, and tarot cards.

Then we all went to the train station, Satani Rote Fai a couple hours early. Oh well, it’s our first train ride. You find your car and your seat and they make up your bed whenever you are ready. Sleeping on the train is heaven, even in that tiny space, on a hard mattress, it could be worse, we could have had to use a peace corps pillow.

It was a good thing Greg wandered up to make sure Matt, Jay, and Patsy got off the train at Khon Chen or I wouldn’t have been sure I was at Udorn. I got off the train and went to the window (they only had one) and I bought my return ticket. Then I went outside to find a ride to the bus station. Pia gave me great directions, even without my fluent Thai (ha-ha), I would have found her, eventually. A thousand and twelve samalor drivers start circling. “Where you go?”

 I tried to tell them, but they were so busy pushing each other out of the way, I kept walking. I saw a motorcycle tuk-tuk and he looked nice, plus there was a lady with a baby already in there. He told me 20 baht, which is the going rate, per Pia, not the farang rate. The driver was so sweet, we got to Satani Mai and he took me by the arm and asked everyone, “Nan Sang Rote Tee Nai?” and when he found the bus he knew I was looking for, he put me on it. No driver, no passengers, just me and a big empty bus. I was a little confused. I came back out and the tuk-tuk driver and pointed at the bus “Nan Sang, Nan Sang”. What the heck, I got back on and sat down. Then the guy that told him which bus joined me, he sold me a ticket (dooah) for 24 baht (yee sip see).  I asked what time the bus left in Thai (oke ja gee mong?) he said 8:30 in English, then he said it in Thai, I think to humor me. So, I had about 30 minutes. I got off the bus and looked for the tuk-tuk driver, he was no where to be seen, so I got a coke, mission impossible music hummed in my head. I got back on the bus and ate my peanut butter sandwich and drank my coke. Three other people got on the bus and we left. There were lots of stops, people getting on and off, including a man with a chicken. We went over a small mountain with a nice view, very green (keow) I was waiting for Michael Douglas to come down off the hill (from Romancing the Stone).

Three hours later we pull into this tiny town, more samalor drivers, same thing tho, they charged me 20 baht, for a 7 km jaunt down a dirt road. Esaan is beautiful, Pia said we were lucky it rained the week before, making it green and lush, just beautiful. Lots of kwai or water buffalo. I passed a pond with kids splashing and two water buffalo up to their horns. I wish I would have had my camera out.

We took an e-ticket song taow ride with Elliot and Dan. Dan is the fish-head in Udon Thani and he is kind of a geek, not the most ambitious person, but his heart is in the right place and he means well. Elliot is a friend of Pia’s that came to visit, he went to school with her and is taking a three month sabbatical. He went to Canada and now he is in Thailand for three weeks. Next he is off to Nepal and India. Elliot is very nice and into adventure, getting to Pia’s place gave him a good taste.

The Wat by Pia’s Nicome is the coolest I have seen so far. It is a plain room up on stilts with one wall. Big, open, empty space. There is a pond-lake behind the Wat with a bridge out to a small house that they use for meditation. With the mountain behind, it is very serene and quiet. I would spend a lot of time there. One of the Monk’s was pretty cool, he spoke a lot of English, and we talked with him for a long time, until he got in trouble. Another Monk told us to leave so he could finish his work.

Pia is really doing some great work there, she said she doesn’t feel too accomplished, but I was very impressed. She is working with one woman’s group and they are raising silk worms. There are two farmers that are very progressive too. One wants to do everything, including going to Sweden to learn Swedish massage. But, Pia is Swedish and may be able to talk him out of it. Anyway, one guy is grafting fruit trees, planting rattan seedlings and lots of other seedlings. He has started a mango orchard, all this in addition to his rice farming. He bought a rice mill with the extra cash from selling seedlings, and Pia got him to plant his rice using broadcast seeding (rather than starting the seeds and transplanting the rice in perfect rows. Ashley did some research on growing rattan and he took it upon himself to soak the starters for three days first and they are starting to sprout. The other farmers didn’t and theirs aren’t sprouting yet. He is a cool little guy. The other farmer is a Poo Yai Bahn with a sharp head on his shoulders. He planted seeds and sold the treelings, he made about 10,000 baht extra last year, all because he heard Pia was giving away the little seedling holders. Now, several villagers want to start home nurseries. She is planning to give five other villagers approximately 50,000 teak seeds, they will raise and sell them.

Small income generation, I cant wait to get to my Site!

Pia also has a couple letters from a girl named Leslie, CF Asasamuk in Guinea, West Africa. All three of us had the same brilliant idea – to have someone in the states copy a letter and forward it to a group of friends. All three of us are saying basically the same thing, how much we love this Country (Thailand or Africa!)

Pia and I had the talk about Peace Corps belonging in Thailand, and the bottom line we agree on is people like Pia do but Peace Corps, really doesn’t. The Thai people could do the development stuff themselves and they could let the Peace Corps Volunteers teach the teachers here to teach English. For the amount of money spent here, there are too many other countries that need it more.

Pia was very informative and very nice, I hope I get to see her again.

When I get to my Site I plan to have a garden and some animals, hopefully I will have a cool neighbor, I don’t think I need any furniture, but I do need “roots” so I feel at home, although I do want to be able to go by tio!